Saturday, December 7, 2013

Something to Write About

It's been a long time. No reason really, just haven't felt the need to write anything in a while. A long while actually.

One of those magical moments happened in the classroom, and it's got me at the keyboard.

My students had to do a round of mandated testing this week. Reading, writing, arithmetic. For the writing assessment, the kids were asked to write a narrative about time travel.

Reading through the kids' stories, I was genuinely impressed with the overall quality. One really stood out though.

One of the girls wrote a story about her journey back in time to a small village in Ethiopia to see her mom. She spends the day watching her mom play in the yard with her teddy bear. When the mother is called inside, she leaves the teddy bear outside. My student sneaks in and grabs it, taking it back with her to the present. She gives the bear to her mother, and seeing this relic of her past, she is overwhelmed with emotion.

I was floored by the power of this girl's story. It's the little things like this one story that make teaching such a rewarding experience.

14 comments:

I wonder what she was thinking and feeling as she wrote her story. You're right - it's good!

I hope you were able to catch her by herself and tell her how strong a story it was. A few teachers told me things when I was young; things that I glossed over. But years later, it would resurface and have an encouraging and beneficial impact on me.

Wow, this gave me the chills to read it. Amazing that a young kid could write something this powerful and touching. If she wants to continue writing I can only imagine how talented she will be as an adult.